I remember the light still streaming, despite the shade, through the square of window above and a little to the right of my bed (looking toward it), lighting my pink room and the bed with its royal blue “velvet” comforter, not really velvet but velour but soft enough under undescriminating young fingers.

I remember the light and the birds still calling their neighborly evening songs and out there, outside the window the clear evening sky overarching the wooded fields across the road that I could see if I had been tall enough, tall enough to look out the window, big enough to “stay up”. The end-of-day light spreading its soft hand over the grass, greening it, make each blade stand up straight, one last muster before rest, over the cornfields, hazy and full of promise.

“But I’m not sleepy”, I would say.

“I’m not tired”.

“It’s still light out”.

“It’s ok”, she would say. “Just close your eyes and rest a little while. Just resting is as good for you as sleep.”

I closed my eyes against the light, the square of light above my bed, to rest a little, a little rest before trying again another bid to keep playing in the light of evening, shutting out the light that I knew was still there, pulling down the curtains of my eyes to rest.

Rob and colleen lost 2 of their 3 cats in 2 short days. I feel so sorry for them. sniff. will be a wreck when Ollie goes, i just know it.

warm, scent-laden breezes wafting through the windows, flirting with the curtains

swish of car tires on the road outside

T and the TT out for a walk somewhere = quiet

birds chirping, cat meowing to get back upstairs…go get cat

cat came up

need to go put up another shelf in laundry room. it’s such a jumble, that room, i need to get it organized.

actually went to church today. Happy Pentecost, everyone! have been feeling the need to sing hymns again. pastor started strong and lost steam as he went, getting bogged down in illustration after illustration. tedious. also his notion of language-learning as being only of the ‘educated class’ (hence, the surprise exhibited at the ‘uneducated’ Galileans being able to speak many languages) but that is an American concept. America, the home of the hopelessly monolingual. many people around the world who lack classroom learning are multi-linguagal. it’s based on need and exposure, not some magical educational formula.

duh.

they only sang 2 hymns. but Miles had fun w/ the kids. may try another church next week. altho this one suits Miles’s nap schedule best.

my balance is pathetic. need to work on it. am afraid i will be a tottering elderly woman who meets her end with a tumble down the stairs…at age 53. looking for tai chi classes but the local Ys are limited in this. need somehting that has child care. maybe a dvd? but want the group effect…

Over the years, Mr Fussy Crankypants has honed his jewelry buying skillz as he has bought various gewgaws for Mrs FC and her jewelry-wearing pleasure.

This past Christmas, in consideration of Mrs FC’s lack of wedding ring wearing due to those slight few extra pounds that seem to be focused in her ring finger the protuberance of Mrs FC’s diamond setting and her disinclination to scratch the TT therewith, Mr FC outdid his jewelry-buying skillz in force by buying the above pictured ring. It is titanium. It is also engraved with tender words the message of which would warm any Fussy’s heart and most especially this particular Fussy.

Mrs FC noticed a few weeks ago that she wasn’t wearing the above ring. She had taken it off to apply lotion to the TT, that much she remembered, and she thought she remembered placing it on the kitchen table. Mrs FC hied herself off to Norfolk for a week to eat seafoodplay on the beach visit her brother and lovely sister-in-law and assumed she would find it when she got back.

Needless to say this post would not exist if in fact Mrs FC HAD found the ring as per her presumably false memory of the taking off of said ring.

Mrs FC started to become worried.

Mrs FC looked around. She looked in her bag. She looked in her wallet. She looked in the pencil case in her wallet. She looked in pants’ pockets.

But the ring was nowhere to be found.

Mrs FC became seriously upset but she was loathe to tell Mr FC that she had lost his ring because she knew it would confirm his impression of her as a brainless, disorganized bit of fluff really upset him.

Mrs FC began, in fact, to beseech the aid of a Higher Power. She did, in fact, pray. She prayed very hard.

And lo, the Lord was with Mrs Fussy Crankypants and lo He dideth grant that her frantic lowly humble prayers wouldst be answered-eth.

And it came to pass that as Mrs FC took out the bag containing a fresh piece of baklava baked at the local bakery, as she took this bag out, therefore, of the side pocket of the stroller, indeed so it was that The Ring itself didst appearethed.

And lo, there was much rejoicing.

yay.

And the moral of this story is that Mrs Fussy Crankypants has just proved that there really is a God.

After a brief hiatus last week (during which I made some awesome food like fish tostados/wraps with chili-lime sour cream that were really good), here was what we had this week:

Monday: Fettucine alfredo with baby bella mushrooms (a quick version made w/ cream cheese but kind of bland in my opinion even though I added a ton of garlic)

Tuesday: Portobello Curry with Green Rice (honestly, mushrooms were not actually a theme this week). This recipe was AWESOME and I will make this again, particularly the rice which could stand alone as a meal by itself, maybe throw in some peas or green beans and some pineapple. Seriously, try the rice. TRY IT.

Did I mention the rice was good?

Wednesday: leftovers including last week’s veggie casserole (made w/ eggplant instead of polenta for extra eggplant-y goodness. would be good or better w/ red sauce instead of the pesto which wasn’t flavorful enough, imho)

Thursday: Salmon with Mango Chutney and Aspargus over Brown Rice

Friday: Rice Noodles with Shrimp, Asparagus and Peppers

This weekend I’m hoping to make some homemade pizza.

Special mention also goes to this granola which is not actually all that healthy but sure tastes good 🙂 as well as these oatmeal pancakes, which have become my go-to pancakes. whenever i make pancakes. which isn’t really all that often. but they are good.

I contacted her via Freecycle. She was in search of extra plants for a beautification project her church group was working on for one of the area schools.

She came by late, after Miles was in bed, a petite, dark-haired energetic woman, young with her hair in a ponytail.

In the darkening evening, as I dug up the extra plants from the cool evening for her to take and use somewhere else, she told me her story, or, more accurately, her daughter’s story.

Her daughter, 4 years old, her first-born, beautiful girl, the image of her mother. Her daughter, who in February, darted away from her dad as he had his back turned at the park getting the other two toddlers out of the car, who headed down to feed the ducks. Who, the last time she was at the park, had gone out on the ice. Who attempted to again.

By the time they found her, she had been underwater for 30 minutes. She was technically dead. A team of 40 caregivers worked over her at Children’s Hospital for 2 hours, unable to stop giving CPR until her little body had been warmed up enough to see if she could breath on her own.

Angie was, she told me, firmly convinced that her daughter will make more gains that predicted. She is already doing things the doctors said she wouldn’t be able to. She can communicate now by blinking her eyes. She still seizures frequently as her little brain makes new neural connections to help her relearn how to live.

I met Angie’s family; they were waiting for her in the car. The 2 year old out cold, the 1 year old squirming and unhappy at being in the carseat so late at night. Abby, with her pixie-cut, glossy dark hair and big brown eyes, looking up at the light, at nothing.

I came back in and cried. How do you endure the unendurable?

If you ever desire to see a vivid example of the sustaining power, and not only sustaining but invigorating power, of faith, just meet up with Angie. She’ll be the one telling you of God’s intervention in bringing her daughter back to life, in sustaining her marriage through the unimagineable, in giving her grace and strength to learn how to raise her daughter in a way she never, ever envisioned having to do.

I hope I never have to face what Angie has faced. I hope I can cling so strongly to Christ as she has done if I do.